Freedom of the Press
by Cordeliers Club
Summary: One of the games that rich young boys play is publishing things in obscure journals. In which there is lots of publishing, a curious amount of snappishness, and a little bit of smackdown.
1. Chapter 1

NOTES BEFORE YOU GO ON: Something old, something new, largely without plot and very foolish. In which everyone is a little argumentative, and not in the usual nerdy way, I posit that Feuilly and Enjolras comprise the Far Far Left, and many people publish things that result in general chaos. Chapters are really more sequential than building thematically. I wash my hands of this. Notes at the end are not required reading, as usual. I'm also interested in your reaction to Feuilly as the Mean Ami, Enjolras as the Crazy Ami, and Courfeyrac as uhm, Ferris Bueller.

**Chapter One: In which Feuilly thinks he is the most patriotic**

Courfeyrac, approaching the Corinthe, almost collided with Prouvaire and Feuilly, who were speaking in slightly elevated voices.

"Pardieu! Pardon," said Courfeyrac. It was an unusual phrase for him, but the similarity of the words had made it attractively clever. He had hoped for a laugh.

"I thought you had given up 'pardieu' as out of date," Feuilly snapped instead.

Prouvaire, next to him, affected a sunny innocence: "Courfeyrac! You've interrupted nothing, we were just about to part ways, I believe."

"Actually," said Feuilly darkly, "we were about to come to blows."

"Over what?" Courfeyrac asked.

"Patriotism," said Feuilly.

"So _you_ think, evidently," said Prouvaire, "but the actual discussion was of the _fasces_."

Feuilly nodded shortly, sweeping off his cap to run a hand through his hair, "The implication that patriotism is a childlike trust of a _dictator_ to be benevolent," he put his cap back on, scowling.

"That's not what I meant at all!" Prouvaire protested.

"God! Hell!" Feuilly had little patience on most days. Less in the morning, and even less when he suspected someone of being too moderate, "The _fascio littorio_, Prouvaire! Unified strength—but with the axe blade never hidden! Ruthless subjugation—the axe. The power of the state. The absolute power of the state, wieldy enough for one man!" Feuilly was not an orator or a debater like some of them. He merely pummeled you with everything that occurred to him. Usually this was quite effective.

Courfeyrac stared at them, Feuilly: barely winded by his tirade, his stride purposeful, again running a hand through his dark hair. Prouvaire: eyebrows raised in desolate surprise, looking ill-equipped to take on Feuilly's martial mood.

"I did not mean for the symbol to be so flammable," Prouvaire said quietly.

Courfeyrac snorted.

"Make fun!" said Feuilly, throwing his hands up, "if you're playing at reform do it somewhere else. I recommend you to the _Moulin à café_," the _Moulin à café _was a group of republican students whom Bahorel visited occasionally. They avoided suspicion with hysterical caution by claiming to be a society of coffee grinders. They were in reality disciples of the memory of Camille Desmoulins. They met, with a romantic flair, under a lamppost on the _rue Dauphin_, using as their phrase of passage "_Qui male agit odit lucem",_ then trickling to whatever room or hall they could find. They published things sporadically, and never very well. One or two of them had recently affected a stammer. In all likelihood the busy Paris police knew everything about their seditious designs and ignored them.

Jean Prouvaire, therefore, was offended.

"I am humbled by your influence," he said, voice beginning to rise again, "I beg you to exert it on my behalf; I can't understand them very well what with the stammer—"

Courfeyrac had been enjoying the scene until this point, from which either it could proceed through to pistols at dawn, or be abruptly ended by his doing something foolish and lighthearted.

He put his hat on Prouvaire's head.

"Parbleu!" Courfeyrac said, "my hat has elected to adopt you. Pity, I rather thought it favored me."

"Courfeyrac, there are other ways to diffuse tension," said Feuilly who, nevertheless, looked amused.

"Other than putting things on people's heads? You are misinformed," Courfeyrac replied.

Feuilly smiled reluctantly.

"Prouvaire, I have something to ask you, and anyway I must follow you until I win back the affection of my hat."

The brim fell low over Prouvaire's eyebrows, and so he removed it before he could walk into anything. The hat invigorated the slightly maniac look of his curls. "I'm stalwart against its charms, what do you need?"

"An opinion. Which is better: seditious verse, or licentious verse?"

"Licentious verse," said Prouvaire without hesitating, "seditious verse makes poetry a vehicle; the means to an end. Sedition itself is immaterial, but to _use_ poetry—unforgivable. And what was it Rousseau said? About the necessity of the genre we 'read with one hand.'"

Courfeyrac nodded. "Excellent answer, I agree entirely, and I shall need your help later. Feuilly, you are frowning because you have run out of Senancour to burn at home. Let me lend you some."

"I quit both of you," said Feuilly, turning down the street. But he was in a much better mood. Shaking his head, he smiled. Perhaps when the day came, the day they planned for, when the fever broke—perhaps that morning Prouvaire and Courfeyrac would have the flu and avoid what was inevitable, that their light unsuffering hearts be shattered.

* * *

SOME NOTES

1. Fasces: The _fasces_ is a bundle of sticks, essentially, bound with a red ribbon with an axe blade attached, which used to be the symbol of office of the Roman lictors. The _fasces_ symbolizes strength and authority through unity; the axe power; the bindings restraint. If you ask the US Capitol, this is a pretty perfect symbol. You'll find it on the Senate seal, on the _lights_ in committee rooms, and anywhere else you want. The Lincoln memorial. The _fasces _was also the symbol of the fascists. I imagine Prouvaire proposed it as some sort of symbol, or maybe they were just chatting.

2. Get it, a bundle of sticks burns. Har har Prouvaire you are way not funny stop trying.

3. Camille Desmoulins: journalist provocateur of the French Revolution. Published a _Discours de la lanterne aux Parisiens_, leading with "_Qui male agit odit lucem_ ("He that does evil hates light")". He also had a stammer.

3a. _Moulin à café: _Totally a made up group of revolutionaries!

4. Rousseau, an apparent fan of philosophic pornography, described it as _"ces livres qu'on ne lit que d'une main"_

5. Étienne Pivert de Senancour, one of the precursors to French romantisme, is someone whom Feuilly despises particularly. His work has been described as "Wertherian-Byronic". Feuilly is not a Romantic and wants to be VERY CLEAR about that!


	2. Chapter 2

NOTES: The second chapter. Again, sequential, not really a thematic capsule. Also in which Enjolras' position on lewd poetry is made very, very clear. Test-driving Terrible!Enjolras, hopefully he's not just Petulant Tyrannical Enjolras. Notes at the end? Useless.

**Chapter Two: In Which The Nature of Courfeyrac's Poem is Made Clear**

The purpose of Courfeyrac's mysterious question did not become clear until almost two weeks later, when Enjolras, who had been paused near the doorway to read a journal article more carefully, became suddenly animated.

He crossed the space to where Courfeyrac sat, and slammed the journal down on his hand.

"Monsieur de Courfeyrac!"

Courfeyrac removed his hand from beneath the paper with an injured, careful air.

"Monsieur d'Enjolras," he said, examining the mobility of each finger individually, "please allow me to direct you to our friend Joly, who will happily draw for you the compared anatomy of my hand and a spider. The two, you will find, are not so similar as you think."

"What," said Enjolras, "is this?" the furious taut motion of his chin indicated the journal.

"Some journal," said Courfeyrac, looking at it, "not popular, not read, on very cheap paper. A poem? A poem, in the journal I have just described."

Enjolras, a wrathful picture, took the page from Courfeyrac. "Of all your idiocies, Courfeyrac, this is recklessly stupid!"

He had attracted stares. Joly looked like he either wanted to die or was about to; Prouvaire was trying surreptitiously to absent himself, and Bahorel leaned back in his chair, hoping for a fight.

Courfeyrac stood up.

Bahorel rubbed his hands.

"Reckless stupidity," said Courfeyrac, gently. Enjolras could be explosive, and Courfeyrac, who had been a fencer, knew that in argument like epee bouts, ferocity could be undercut with calmness.

Enjolras' voice had the occasional qualities of a whip. Now it snapped, with precision: "The revolution is an ablution. One does not scour marble with—_filth_."

Courfeyrac said, "I wasn't aware that my every action was taken on behalf of the revolution. Must we now take a vote about what I am to wear every morning? I motion now that Prouvaire be disenfranchised from this particular decision."

This served to trigger something in Enjolras's mind, because he then looked at Prouvaire and snapped his name.

Prouvaire froze, perhaps a long stride from the door. He gave it a longing glace.

"This is your penname, is it not?" asked Enjolras.

"I have several, I'd have to see it," said Prouvaire with admirable calm, "What is the problem, Enjolras, by the way?"

Bahorel answered him happily, "Courfeyrac has published a poem; rather pornographic, mostly about our dear glib Guizot. Very good verse. Very nice hexameter. There are several choice cameos by no useless _enragés_ less than the _Moulin à café_. A new development: it is printed in a _nom de plume_ of yours," Bahorel concluded: "You are therefore an interested party and may not make a wager."

"Thank you, Bahorel," said Prouvaire.

"I'm all in for Enjolras," said Feuilly.

"Oh? With your—disposable income?" asked Bahorel.

"I'm for Courfeyrac," said Bosseut, "He is armed, I think."

During this exchange, four men had rearranged themselves: Grantaire, fantastically, had drifted to stand behind Enjolras' shoulder, and Prouvaire to Courfeyrac's side. They looked like duelists agreeing on paces.

Enjolras then crumpled the paper in his fist. "No more," he said, "no more of these games, not here."

Courfeyrac and Prouvaire had either been raised well enough to affect twin blushes of chagrin, or felt genuine regret.

* * *

NOTES:

Holy crap there are no notes, panic! I guess if you want:

1. You'll notice the Amis are kind of combative. I'm trying a new thing here. They're all young guys, and from what I've seen of men their age playing around in politics, they fight all the time, good naturedly, and then go get some fro-yo.

2. So, basically, Courfeyrac's poem is probably something lewd about Guizot and The King, or whatever, and probably kind of long as such things tend to be. Prouvaire probably helped him tighten up the verse, and innocently delivered it to one of his publishers. But the authors of these things get out, in the tiny university communities which are the only places reading them anyway.

3. There is no fro-yo in 1832, this is why the Amis can't have nice things. Don't you hate yourself for reading these footnotes?


	3. Chapter 3

NOTE: I'd like to explore Enjolras' Sekrit Fears sometime but you know, better.

**Chapter Three: In Which the Ailment, Not the Symptoms, Are Treated**

If it had been regret, they felt more two days later. Courfeyrac's verses, which had increased his popularity by exponents everywhere else, had understandably angered the adherents of the late Camille Desmoulins, the _Moulin à café_.

They, like Enjolras, had parceled Courfeyrac with _les Amis de l'ABC_, and the vicious pamphlet with which they retaliated was mostly about Enjolras.

"It is mostly untrue, as well, we should note," said Combeferre, pausing the movement of his pen. No one knew how late it was, and they did not foresee leaving soon.

Enjolras, the libeled individual, had responded admirably by ignoring the pamphlet, and begging the pardon of anyone who mentioned it; he had not seen it or heard of this "_Moulin a Café_, was it?". This strategy impressed people, but did nothing to counter the effects among people who didn't know him.

His lieutenants were retaliatory. It was attributed to Bahorel's efforts that the members of the _Moulin à café_ were no longer welcome in any café in the _arrondissement,_ or indeed in any of their classes. Feuilly perhaps had inspired Parisian workers to gather menacingly under the lamppost on the _rue Dauphin_ each night, depriving them of a sacred symbol and a place to meet.

And finally Combeferre, who was rarely a journalist and more rarely a pamphleteer, organized their group to publish a response.

Absent, as he had not been informed about any of these measures, was Enjolras.

"What have they called this anyway?" asked Joly.

"'In Defense of the Foundations of Liberty, Which Legitimize a Republic, Against the Threat of Despotism,'"

"Catchy," said Courfeyrac, "their chum Desmoulins would cry."

"Desmoulins would cry at being implicated as their chum," said Prouvaire, "all they seem to have learned from him is to attack _ad hominem_."

Combeferre nodded. His glasses kept sliding down when his face was tilted toward the page. He secured them with a finger. He read from the pamphlet: "'One would think it was d'Enjolras, not Marienne, who embodies our Republic and its glory, or this is certainly his own opinion. The confusion is between these two marmoreal subjects is justified, and yet d'Enjolras should be counted on to find in his own anatomy a _difference_, this difference we describe as _mammary_. And more dangerously d'Enjolras, as he goes about the town striking up the Marseilles in your heart, has firmly in mind a certain illustration of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. Who knows but you may be his foot.'"

"God, what awful stuff," said Courfeyrac, "what does one say to counter reckless idiots?"

"One says 'no,'" Courfeyrac's tone was nearly inaudible.

Their pamphlet was in publication the next day. By the end of the week not one man with an assumed stammer even attempted to meet on the _rue Dauphin_. Only one remained in Paris, and he had stopped going to the university.

Courfeyrac was pleased. "The proper motion," he said grandly, demonstrating it in the middle of the Musain, "is to bring the bootheel down firmly and then _twist_," he did so savagely, to a cheer, "thus is the nuisance exterminated."

"We've done the mother tongue a favor," said Bahorel when the cheer was up, "chasing out those butchers ofFrench."

Enjolras was, to everyone's surprise, less than pleased when he arrived.

"Combeferre," he said softly, putting an arm around Combeferre's shoulder to take him into confidence, "you authorize this cheerful assassination?"

"Assassination? We defend you, Enjolras; we will not tolerate libel. Neither will we use violence, and so we responded in print."

"No violence? There are few crueler aggressions!" Enjolras removed his arm, stepping back from Combeferre, "few crueler aggressions than making public mock of a weaker man! The worse man, yes, but these fools were Republicans! Did you once question that they were Republicans?"

"They see you as something less than a Republican, Enjolras; they fail to comprehend what a Republican aught."

"You say the most perilous thing!"

"I say nothing perilous. It is merely the case that, when stepped on, we shall bite in the heel. It should be understood. It was not. It is now."

"You confirm their idiot accusations, that I am the Revolution. I am not the Revolution, I do not want to be a despot—I—to be so misunderstood—" Enjolras faltered.

"Enjolras," said Combeferre. The room was silent.

"They are more like Camille Desmoulins than they know," said Enjolras, his ever quiet word perfectly audible, "and I am Robespierre near the end; you are handing me the warrants."

Silence.

"We had needed them," Enjolras said, even quieter, "and we treated them monstrously."

Combeferre was standing, his glasses askew, and his lips parted unconsciously. He looked like the recipient of a blow who had not yet located the pain.

"Oh, by Hell," said Prouvaire, standing, "we are not all inside your head, Enjolras, please don't assign our faces to your pet doubts. No one's gone and guillotined good patriots in the street, and no one's going to, and no one thinks you the Revolution's despot. These things trouble you, but until the name Enjolras strikes more fear in honest men than does the name of the People in wicked ones, you haven't got the tragedy you're scripting. Yes, you are angry with me. I am the recipient of an icy look. I stand here braced for your ridicule, just please don't miscast the role of Combeferre in your imagined script," finished, Prouvaire sat down decisively, and immediately hid his hands under the table as they began to shake.

Combeferre said, "Jehan is right, Enjolras, you are not the Revolution's despot. You galvanize it, and you protect the precious elements of civilization. You said that one does not scour marble with filth, and neither does one with venom—I was wrong to employ it. I am sorry."

Enjolras, looking around the room, shook his head, "Combeferre, there is nothing to be sorry for. My speech was paranoid," he put a hand on Combeferre's shoulder, "and I am ashamed. I am lucky in my friends."

The next day a young man, known to Bahorel at least, stammer having miraculously evaporated, began to frequent the Café Musain to hear Enjolras. He said, when Feuilly asked him outright, that his patriotism had overcome his pride. For France, he said, he would bear anything.

"Really," Feuilly explained to him, touched, "we are rarely political. We need only patriots and the power to inspire the patriots in ordinary men."

"We were mistaken, of course," the young man said, "to think that the head of something necessarily leads it."

* * *

NOTES:

This fic is so silly, I barely have any notes at all.

1. Marianne is the personification of the French Republic. She will later appear in Delacroix's painting having a wardrobe malfunction.

2. library..au/libraries/rare/modernity/images/hobbes2-1.jpg RAAAAAR

3. "...when stepped on, we shall bite in the heel" Combeferre refers to the Gadsden Flag, and perhaps Franklin's writing on the symbol of the rattlesnake, with which he would have been quite familiar. He also unknowingly refers to the Montresor heraldry.

Anyway have at this fic.


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